LGBT community to make sanitary napkins for a living

May 31, 2016 /
Pahichan Reporter

India/Pahichan – The Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community in the city have got an opportunity to earn money independently.

Transgenders and eunuchs associated with the Lakshya Trust will manufacture sanitary napkins. On the ‘Menstrual Hygiene Day’ on Saturday, the city-based Vatsalaya Foundation will launch a manufacturing unit to produce low-cost organic sanitary napkins.

The napkins will be sold under the brand name of ‘Sakhi’ at the trust. “It is an initiative to empower the marginalized community in a noble manner. Our volunteers have trained them in the manufacturing process,” said Swati Bedekar of Vatsalaya Foundation.

“This is the first time that any institution has given us a work opportunity. Once we get expertise in the production process, we intend to train other transgenders from the city,” said Manvi Vaishnav, a member of the trust.

“Usually, transgenders are forced to be sex workers or beggars. In Vadodara too, there is hardly any organization that hires people from the LGBT community,” said Ayesha Sheikh, a member of the trust.

There is not a uniform understanding among ordinary people about homosexual, transgender, inter-sex and bi-sexual people. Even the people who know about variance in this community address saying female, male and transgender. They, however, do not have proper knowledge that transgender have two categories: transgender woman and transgender man.
In this situation, it is not an easy task to inform society about their rights. Even the media and society did not have a positive attitude towards sexual and gender minority such as homosexual, transgender, inter-sex and bi-sexual people. National media had... Read more